


never should have let it live

by ocjones



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Asynchronous Narrative, F/M, One Shot, Post-TLJ, Redeemed Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 10:26:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocjones/pseuds/ocjones
Summary: Snoke tips her back and hangs her in the air and chokes her. His torture opens his mind and she tastes annoyance, cold, nothing intense enough to be rage. He’ll be glad to kill her. He’d be glad to kill everyone.Except.There is something Snoke would prefer over killing her.





	never should have let it live

There is singing in the forest. The trees are as alive as the birds. They move their reeds to sing their songs, humming about morning and about the sun on their leaves and another song, a song called _Stranger_. Rey still can’t fathom how they’re real, how they sense her as clearly as she sees them. No matter what worlds she visits, these are the ones she loves, vibrant and growing and every color. There is no true safety. She’s seen vines slither and twist, moss obscuring caverns, creatures with appetites ravenous and gnawing, just like hers, but still she dreams of life, no matter the danger.

 

Well, she used to.

 

She feeds on berries and sap, and sits with her legs in the water, licking sweetness from her fingers. _Stranger_ has turned to a pleasant, humming curiosity. It likes her, this forest. She belongs. She blushes.

 

The water is a little cool on her legs. There are no fish in it. She almost wishes there were. They fascinate her, living all the time in the liquid. She leans closer to the water and impulsively lets herself tip in.

 

It’s fresh and incredible and Rey floats. She could float here forever, she thinks, she could—

 

 _Stranger_. Stranger stranger stranger.

 

The song is frantic. The trees are screaming.

 

She jolts upright in the water and swims in circles, looks in every direction.

 

No one’s there.

 

No one who hasn’t been there already.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Snoke tips her back and hangs her in the air and chokes her. His torture opens his mind and she tastes annoyance, cold, nothing intense enough to be rage. He’ll be glad to kill her. He’d be glad to kill everyone.

 

Except.

 

There is something Snoke would prefer over killing her.

 

When he dies—unreally, unbelievably dies at the hands of his apprentice—when she and Kylo stand there in quiet confusion, blood and char and flame around them—when they crack open one of the only things they want and share—she sees, she _understands_ , what Snoke wanted to happen.

 

It’s why Rey leaves.

 

It’s why Rey keeps leaving.

 

For once, Rey is free of her endless desire to stay, stay, _stay_.

 

* * *

 

It’s getting harder now. Harder to move, harder to breathe, and harder to hide. She jumps from planet to planet in her little ship, scavenging everything she can, trading and buying for what she can’t. It still amazes her how much there is on other worlds. People are beginning to give her strange looks. She wonders if the First Order has placed a price on her head.

 

She could rip apart the entirety of the universe.

 

But so could he.

 

* * *

 

Something between them is not right. There’s a thread, moldy and rotten and ugly. It’s been there forever. She used to think, perhaps unkindly, it was Kylo, the dark side spidering through their connection. But it’s not. It’s something from Snoke, an evil master’s final uncharitable gift. It links them as much as it burns them. Rey thinks of their fingertips grazing, and how good it felt, how right, but how much it _hurt_ , burned like touching the hottest sands on Jakku. Two sensations braided together.

 

Maybe Snoke _did_ link them, and maybe he didn’t, but she knows when she feels that thread that if she and Kylo—Ben?—Kylo ever see each other again, something is going to happen.

 

Something real and tangible and terrible.

 

She swears she will never let it come to that.

 

* * *

 

This is not acceptable. She knows it. Kylo Ren has touched her with his darkness and it will follow her everywhere. She knows that, too.

 

With dread and misery, Rey closes herself off from the Force.

 

* * *

 

They meet on another planet. It is not unlike Jakku. It isn’t as hot, but it is barren. Quiet. He is a horrific vision in his black clothes on the white sand, among the trees. He watches her. Her hand is on her saber’s handle. His is at his side. The breeze blows his hair into his face. He steps closer.

 

This is the thing. The real, tangible, terrible thing.

 

She shivers. She can’t take it.

 

Kylo kisses her with such gentleness she feels like crying. Fury and anger, she expected, sure, hunger boiled to rage, lust an unwilling, awkward counterpart. Something easy to reject.

 

Kylo slips a single thumb over her shoulder and Rey moans, broken.

 

Why shouldn’t she do this? Why not? What proof is there of Snoke’s manipulation? He was a maniac. Surely she can have this. Not just this, not just Kylo Ren under her fingertips, but everything else that comes with it, minus the doom.

 

Surely, the universe will not ask her to forfeit _again_ and be gleeful about it, as it always does.

 

Their coupling is every broken thing brought together. Her isolation meets his. Her hands are on his, on his body, on his face, in his hair, and this is all so good she knows it’s too good to last. Dread settles in her stomach. Hard.

 

Immediately she _knows_ , can feel it through the Force, that that awful black thread in their bond...it’s real.

 

The moment it’s over—he’s still inside her—she regretfully uses the Force to knock him unconscious. She dresses.

 

She runs.

 

* * *

 

He is gorgeous and terrible. Darkness. She fears him as much as she wants him. For all his bravado, there is still desire in his hatred.

 

She hates this.

 

“How did you find me?” she chokes.

 

He stares at her.

 

His answer takes forever.

 

“You never should have let it live.”

 

* * *

 

She’s _huge_. She’s afraid. It’s happening. Has he told the universe? Is everyone looking for her? Is there anywhere she can go?

 

She doesn’t know where to go. She’s never had a mother. She could ask Leia, but she can’t risk it.

 

She thinks hard, or she tries to. Just then a pain so unreal hits her that her eyes cross and she sits there for a moment, silent, dazed.

 

Big enough to be safe. Small enough to be out of the way.

 

Right.

 

There’s a planet about an hour away. She makes the jump quickly and starts flying in that direction. By the time she locates it, lands, and stumbles inside, her face is flushed and there’s blood on her thighs. The med droids lead her to a bed and start checking, measuring, guiding. She pushes and hisses through her teeth and howls but the awful part is there’s less pain than most of what she’s been through before. It takes hours. Rey is impatient and pushes and _reaches_ and she has her. Finally.

 

She is bloody and covered in muck. Fleshy. Human. Purple. Crying.

 

Rey’s heart swells a hundred times, and she knows immediately she would die for her.

 

And she might have to.

 

* * *

 

There is something by the ship. It’s a metal crate. Black. There’s a latch on the side. The impact of the ground seems to imply it was dropped.

 

Is it a bomb? A death machine? _Where did it come from_?

 

Rey’s breath hitches.

 

She presses the latch.

 

* * *

 

In the end, she goes back to the forest, the singing trees, the water. There is a song of return for Rey. For her daughter, there is a song of caution, of wariness. They sensed her last time, growing inside, the _stranger_ , and they sensed the dark, dark thread threatening to choke the goodness from her.

 

They live in Rey’s ship. She is comforted knowing she could simply fly away if needed. She cracks the hatch and sits half-exposed with her, letting the air in, shielding the baby’s little face as she feeds from her mother. She is amazed by this still. Her body can feed another person after a lifetime of starving, feed her until she’s asleep, dark eyes closed, little mouth milky and open. What a glorious magic it is.

 

She still doesn’t know what to call her.

 

She bathes her daughter onboard. She cannot bear to let her close to the lake. It can’t be that deep—she can just see the bottom—but it might as well be an abyss. She has nightmares of her awful hands slipping, slipping, her daughter at the bottom of the lake, the father gladly cracking her head open—

 

Her hands have touched death.

 

She cannot sleep.

 

She still does not open herself to the Force.

 

* * *

 

“How did you—” she chokes. “How did you find us?”

 

“You’ve closed yourself off from the Force.” He points with a leather-clad finger. “She cannot.”

 

She can’t believe it. Stupid stupid stupid. She cradles her closer. Those little wet breaths in her ear, her daughter's heartbeat—it’s her world and she will not let him have it.

 

“Why?” she begins. “Why can’t I have this?”

 

“Is this it?” he sneers. “The family you always wanted?”

 

She can’t answer.

 

“You took her from me.”

 

“You would have slaughtered her. Or me. Or both of us.”

 

Oddly, Kylo does not reply. She can see it, Force or no Force. He dreams of killing Rey, grooming his heir. Another Skywalker. And he dreams, too, of killing the baby: Skywalker children should be killed in their cribs. There is no vision of Rey hand in hand with their daughter and him. She knew there wouldn’t be, yet she’s still disappointed.

 

The baby starts fussing. Rey, unthinkingly, shifts her, cradles her, exposing her face. She coos something sweet. The baby stares at her father, and his eyes are wide.

 

Kylo licks his lips, starts. “No.”

 

She closes her eyes. Her saber is on the ship—stupid, _stupid_ —and dreams of flying away.

  
She hears his boots on the ground and opens her eyes to beg him.

 

He has turned.

 

He is walking away.

 

Rey collapses to her knees, daughter still on her shoulder, and sobs and sobs.

 

The trees sing a song she does not know.

 

It sounds like relief.

 

* * *

 

Water rules Rey’s dreams, as it always has. She dreams of lakes and rain. She dreams of Ahch-To. She drinks so much from the lake she fears she might make it dry.

 

She dreams of the water inside her. Dark water.

 

It kicks. Rey shivers.

 

* * *

 

There is so much to do, but there’s nothing to do. The days all seem to blur into each other until her daughter can do something new, which keeps happening; she grows _so fast_.

 

Rey names her Callista. She heard it once before. Even _Rey_ , as much as it’s all she used to have, is a nothing sort of name. She deserves something long. Pretty. Substantial.

 

She first time Callista laughs, really laughs, Rey’s heart feels whole.

 

The trees laugh, too.

 

* * *

 

She keeps a record of them. Once a month or so, the crates drop. Inside there are clothes for her and Callista. Little toys. She loves the toys. She can move the toys without touching them. Rey can nearly build a wall with the crates.

 

One month, something else comes.

 

He is not cloaked. He is not gloved. “I would—” He clears his throat. “I would like to hold her.”

 

Callista giggles at the prospect. Rey’s brows crease. “Please don’t take her,” she whispers. “Please.”

 

Kylo nods.

 

It’s not as hard as it would have been, that first meeting: she can hold her own head and kriff knows she can squirm like a champion. Rey shows him how to tuck his hands under her, holding her secure. Callista reaches for his hair and laughs again. Rey can’t breathe.

 

Kylo clears his throat. “Hello,” he says to the baby, seriously. Then nothing. He’s still looking at her when he continues, “They were never together, my parents. Never with me. My father aboard the Falcon in parts unknown. My mother leaving me with guardians and nannies. It’s no better than what Anakin had, or Luke, or Leia.” He brings her closer, presses a soft kiss to her forehead. “It has to end.”

 

“What...what does?” Rey tries.

 

“This. A life without their parents for Skywalker children. I don’t want to do that to her.” He finally looks at Rey. His eyes are wet. “Or what will happen to her? She’ll end up like the rest of us.” He sways her a little. Callista coos. He almost smiles. “Snoke wanted our children. He knew they’d be strong in the Force. And she’s even stronger than I thought.”

 

“What do you want, Kylo?”

 

Kylo and their daughter are both quiet. She looks at Callista’s face, at her soft brown hair, at her eyes as dark as her father’s.

 

He says, “I need your help.”

 

* * *

 

She’s in the water. It streams around her, moves with her. She breaks the fine glass of the surface and gasps for air.

 

“Daddy, look!” she giggles. “I can swim!”

 

Rey looks at Kylo. The sun is on his hair, on their skin, on their interlaced hands. His face is peaceful. His eyes speak joy.

 

The trees are singing again.

 

The song this time is _life_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> The title came from the wonderful Random Art Prompt Generator at magatsu.net. I highly recommend it if you’re suffering from creative block!


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